It is commonly known that bottles containing sparkling liquid and closed by a cork, e.g. champagne bottles, are under high pressures up to almost 7 bars. Consequently, accidents happen on a regularly base by corks becoming uncontrollable projectiles upon opening the bottle. Such expelled cork can be very dangerous and harmful for the consumer's face and in particular the eyes.
In the state of the art, several attempts are made to avoid such dangerous situations. For example, WO2006092661 (Mauffette) describes a cork remover where relative rotation causes cork-gripping means to exert an upward action on the cork. The cork is thus lifted upwardly until it is finally expelled from the bottle under the action of the pressure inside the bottle and wherein the expelled cork is trapped in a space provided in the cork remover decreasing in cross sectional area in the direction of cork expelling direction.
Another example is WO2008061547 (Ferrari) describing a cork remover with an outer body engaging on the bottle neck bulge and an inner body engaging on the cork. The inner body is slidably mounted in the outer body such that it slides upwardly when the cork is expelled.
However, besides the fact that the last cited cork remover is quit complex in manufacturing and in use, a remaining problem of all above cork removers is that, although the cork is trapped by the cork remover, the safety harness still has to be removed from the bottle neck bulge before positioning the cork remover. As a consequence, the risk remains that the cork will be accidentally expelled before placing the cork remover.
In an attempt to solve the above problem, U.S. Pat. No. 4,750,391 describes a cork remover having a frame with pivotable annulus for placing the cork remover over the cork and the safety harness, and a pair of thongs connected to a pair of arms for lifting the cork.
A disadvantage of this type of cork remover is its complexity in manufacturing the parts and in assembling.
Another disadvantage is that a user needs two hands for engaging the handles such that he is compelled to provide a stable, horizontal, un-slippery surface for placing the bottle on.
A second remaining problem is that state of the art cork removers are not adapted to withstand the lifting pressure on the cork in the last phase of the opening process. As a result, the consumer cannot avoid that the cork is expelled abruptly in the last phase of the opening process. As is commonly known, the quality of for example champagne is decreased by brutal cork expel because then the pressure in the bottle drops abruptly and the carbon dioxide concentration in the liquid decreases to much.
Considering the above drawbacks, it is a first object of the present invention to provide a cork remover adapted to trap the expelled cork.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide a cork remover for which it is not required to remove the safety harness from the bottle neck bulge before positioning the cork remover.
Further, it is a third object of the present invention to provide a cork remover having the ability to controllably release the cork, even in the last phase of the opening process, such that the genuine quality of the sparkling liquid can be kept.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a cork remover which is less complex in manufacturing and less complicated in use.
The present invention meets the above objects by providing a cork remover comprising an outer body, and an inner body having cork-gripping means and being slidably mounted in the outer body, characterized in that the outer body comprises a notch for positioning the outer body over a bottle cork's safety harness and releasing the safety harness's eye.